Is it not a galgame?

After seeing the discussion on the Internet about why there was a sales vacuum period on pokeni, P's operations director Kazuma Takahashi approached President Qing Zhiyuan.

"President, there is one thing that I don't really understand. In fact, I feel that the players on the Internet are quite right. Obviously, you can receive pokeni games every year during the Chinese New Year, but you don't get them this year. It's actually quite a pity.

It shows that their demand for us is quite strong.

Moreover, even if the game is not released in time for the New Year period, why haven’t we released it until the end of February? "

Kazuma Takahashi flipped through the announcement sheet. The latest game "Shenmue" designated by the president will be released in early April in the first half of this year.

Obviously "Shenmue" has already been approved.

Warcraft 3 is also in the April schedule, but the two have different focuses. Shenmue focuses on the neon market, while Warcraft 4 focuses on Omni.

From November last year to April this year, the vacuum period was quite long. How could anyone leave money and not earn it?
Kazuma Takahashi couldn't understand.

Seeing Takahashi Kazuma's anxious look, Qing Zhiyuan smiled slightly:
"Don't be impatient, sit down and listen to me slowly."

Kazuma Takahashi frowned and sat down on the sofa. The president said so, why should I be anxious or dissatisfied?

Qing Zhiyuan made two cups of coffee, brought them over in a leisurely manner, and placed one cup in front of Takahashi.

"I remember you didn't like sugar."

"Thank you, President."

Kazuma Takahashi's face turned slightly red. He didn't expect that the president would even remember such details.

He used to like sweets, but since he became the operations director, his physical condition has not allowed him to do so. He is getting fatter and heavier, and his blood sugar is also high.

More importantly, Takahashi often prefers to drink bitter coffee when working overtime. In addition to refreshing his mind, it also has a feeling that brings him back to reality.

It sounds strange to say, but this is the true portrayal of Takahashi. Pain makes people live, and bitterness can make people feel the reality.

Especially if you hold such a high-level position in a large company like Pokeni, you can easily get carried away if you are not careful.

It's easy to make mistakes when you drift.

Kazuma Takahashi is still very disciplined in this regard.

This is also a very important reason why Qing Zhiyuan likes him.

After Kazuma Takahashi took a sip of coffee to calm down, Qing Zhiyuan then said with a smile:

"Logically speaking, the game should be launched linearly according to the market consumption cycle. It is best to maximize profits and fill up the timeline, right?"

"Yeah." Takahashi nodded seriously.

So you know the president?
Kazuma Takahashi sighed inwardly, but this guy obviously knows everything, but he still does strange things?

After thinking about it carefully, it seems to be quite in line with Qing Zhiyuan's style.

Qing Zhiyuan continued: "The market has its own rules of operation, and all game manufacturers will sum up a set of adapted rules from past experience. How many game manufacturers are thinking about completely industrializing and streamlining games. That is to maintain continuous and stable output to meet the needs of players throughout the year.

This way you can maximize your market share.

However, this is actually an ideal state and an impossible task.

No game manufacturer has such a strong capital chain that can supply so many products, and no game manufacturer can guarantee that every game it produces will be a hit. "

Except pokeni.

But Paradox's strength lies in its technological superiority.

Although the hit rate is very high, close to 99%, the production cycle is long and cannot fill the gap to meet the needs of players.

Under such circumstances, the game giants’ solution is to form cliques:
If my game alone cannot completely occupy the market and meet the needs of all players, then I will bring in other game manufacturers. If one is not enough, I will bring in a few more, dozens or hundreds. It is always possible.

Then, profit from it through the game platform you built yourself.

Rentendo and Sega did this in the past, and Sony and Pokeni do the same now.

After Qing Zhiyuan analyzed it, Takahashi Kazuma nodded repeatedly.

The president obviously sees the problem very clearly, but why still...

"So, have you noticed?" Qing Zhiyuan said with a smile, "First of all, although pokeni has not released new games, it does not mean that we have not made profits, right?"

Well……

Takahashi Kazuma was stunned for a moment and realized that this seemed to be the case.

Although on the surface it seems that pokeni only has one version of The Matrix, the Dandelion game platform is releasing new ones every month, or even every week.

For example, EA's Need for Speed ​​5 was released in December last year.

Then "Tomb Raider: Chronicles" was released in January and also achieved popular results.

In February, FF2 landed on the Dandelion platform, which caused an earthquake in the gaming industry. Square Enix made a leap in quality by adopting pokeni's latest Trailblazer engine. As a result, Return of the King broke through 9 million sales in one breath. Become the most popular RPG game at the moment.

If you count them as part of pokeni, there doesn't seem to be any shortcomings.

You must know that when these games are sold on the Dandelion Game Platform, P will receive 15% of the royalties.

It seems that the charges are similar to Sony's, but because Pokeni has online download channels in the Omi region, it reduces a lot of costs for the game. There is no need for a series of costs such as disc production costs, logistics and packaging.

Therefore, for third-party game developers, the profit margin is larger.

In other words, as long as pokeni operates the Dandelion game platform well and not only iteratively updates the hardware and pioneer engine to maintain the advancement of the platform in the future, then it will be able to collect money just sitting there.

Thinking of this, Takahashi Kazuma's eyes suddenly lit up.

It seems that my thinking is somewhat limited, and I haven't changed from the traditional profit model of game manufacturers, or the change has not been so complete.

"So, although pokeni has not released games, pokeni's shadow is actually everywhere."

Qing Zhiyuan explained with a smile.

"I see." Kazuma Takahashi took a deep breath, "But you have to have your own products after all, right? There are still some differences between the two. We charge 15% of the royalties, and all the revenue from our games belongs to us.

More importantly, pokeni relies on games to continue to maintain word-of-mouth and increase players' expectations.

Games are our fundamentals. "

"Yes."

Qing Zhiyuan nodded in agreement, "This is the second point I want to talk about next."

"I deliberately adjusted the schedule like this. After creating a vacuum period, have you seen the players' reactions?"

"Yeah." Takahashi Kazuma looked at the president suspiciously, not quite understanding what he wanted to express.

Qing Zhiyuan smiled and pointed it out directly: "This is called hunger marketing."

ha? !

Takahashi Kazuma was slightly startled, but his eyes widened in the next second.

what? !

Is it actually hunger marketing? !
It's not that Kazuma Takahashi doesn't know about hunger marketing, but he didn't expect that the president would actually apply it here.

I always feel that it is somewhat different from the traditional hunger marketing method.

I didn't think in this direction at first.

But when Qing Zhiyuan said this, Takahashi Kazuma suddenly became enlightened.

"Wow, that's it." Hungry marketing is a marketing strategy. Its core is to create an illusion that supply exceeds demand by adjusting the relationship between supply and demand, thereby increasing the demand and selling price of products.

For example, take the atypical hunger marketing method adopted by Qing Zhiyuan:

In the past, users were probably used to having pokeni's new games at the end of the year. At the same time, pokeni's output was also very stable. A game masterpiece would be released almost every few months, and the gap between them would just equal the freshness of the previous game. Use up.

So players will naturally have an expectation in their hearts: It's almost time, right? New game for pokeni.

But now it is obviously time for dinner, but the meal has not been served. Players will naturally enter a state of hunger, thereby achieving the purpose of hunger marketing.

This strategy usually includes the following key elements:

attract attention.

First of all, the product needs to have a certain degree of attention in order to attract consumers' attention.

Establish demand: After attracting attention, you need to establish consumer demand. This may include raising consumer expectations and demand for the product through publicity and buzz.

After demand is established, a hot-selling situation is created by limiting the supply, making the product more precious and sought-after.

Then raise the price of the product to maintain a high price.

Through these strategies, product prices can not only be maintained at a high level, but also sales can be increased and brand value enhanced.

This is what Qing Zhiyuan is doing.

Although he didn't really want to do this at the beginning, he just took advantage of the situation. Now that the situation has become like this, Qing Zhiyuan also changed a marketing strategy to adapt.

Otherwise, it is also a good choice to cultivate user habits and develop a fixed consumption pattern.

However, the risk is quite high.

Kazuma Takahashi understood it, but he also deeply understood the negative effects of hunger marketing.

Thirst marketing also needs to be used with caution, because if it is overused or the market environment is not suitable, it may cause consumers to switch to other brands, damaging corporate image and consumer loyalty.

If players’ expectations are not managed well during the vacuum period, they may turn to Sony.

Fortunately, our friends and businessmen cooperated well and there was a time lag.

And because it is a unilateral strategy on the pokeni side, it is impossible for competitors Sony and Rentendo to know when they will adopt the hunger marketing strategy, so they cannot target the vacuum period.

After this smooth transition, it became pokeni's advantage.

High, really high.

Thinking of this, Kazuma Takahashi almost wanted to shout [President Hideaki! 】

However, there is one more thing that Kazuma Takahashi has not thought too clearly about.

He studied the future announcement carefully.

As time goes by, pokeni will actually be able to play more and more cards in the second half of this year.

After hunger marketing, it is equivalent to playing out the cards in your hand in the short term.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of effect it will have in the future. If it fails to achieve the purpose of hunger marketing, it will disrupt the entire publicity schedule.

After some communication with Qing Zhiyuan, Takahashi Kazuma finally dispelled his doubts.

"Since the president has already considered so much, I will definitely support the president." Takahashi Kazuma said firmly.

Qing Zhiyuan smiled slightly, "Okay, do more things and be less afraid of flattery."

"Yes, President!"

……

The rain is coming and the wind is all over the building.

After pokeni's strategy was formulated, although the news was kept airtight, the vacuum period caused by P's hungry marketing was so weird that many colleagues noticed something fishy.

"No! This feels so wrong!!!"

This tastes so wrong.

During the entire period from December 2000 to February 12, pokeni was too silent. There was no news at all and no games. Only one Naruto anime was popular.

But someone has calculated an account and found that apart from making P Club lose money, this animation basically failed to bring any benefits to Qing Zhiyuan.

This is not like pokeni at all.

Many colleagues smelled an unusual smell.

As a result, there were more rumors about pokeni in the world.

"Have you noticed that the pokeni situation since the second half of last year has been too abnormal? There is only one game, "The Matrix", and it was released in conjunction with the movie.

Other than that, there was really no movement at all in the second half of the year. "

"Yes, yes, not only was there no movement in the second half of last year, but this spring was also very lonely. I saw that many players on the forum were looking forward to P Club's new game, but there was no action.

Deadly silent. "

“It’s nothing like pokeni.

You must know that the current P Club can integrate Sega and the large game manufacturer Beimi Branch. There is no reason to only have one game in half a year. "

"It's so weird. Pokeni has always been very high-profile. After so many games were released at last year's E3 electronics show, it always gives people the impression that they have a lot of cards.

As a result, not a single card was played for 4 months.

What does this make people think? "

"What kind of trick is pokeni playing? It's completely unpredictable."

"Qing Zhiyuan is so cunning. He can often do things that subvert everyone's expectations. You will never guess what he is."

"It's not the pokeni I know anyway. I see many players on the forum are crazy. Without P Club's games, it's like going to jail."

"You must be poisoned, these pokeni players."

"It's a really scary feeling. It's like the calm before the storm.

There was a haze in the sky, and the smell of storm could be smelled in the air.

But it’s not raining, which is really uncomfortable. "

"Water can be squeezed out of the air, and your whole body is soaked. The storm hasn't come yet?"

"Yes, yes, I feel the same way. Could it be that P Club is brewing a big wave?

It's a bit scary.

If a lot of games suddenly burst out, I don’t know if the players would be able to bear it. "

"I don't know if the players can bear it, but one thing I'm sure of is that our company definitely can't bear it. Small companies are meant to survive in the cracks, and it would be terrible if the winner takes all because of the Matthew effect.

I would rather hope that pokeni has no masterpieces to sell due to the production schedule, rather than some weird marketing strategy. "

……

...(End of chapter)